Considering that no one "knows" how the universe was created, a duration of six days is just about as good as any other. When the "big bang" theory was in vogue, I read lots of time lines where the universe expanded from a geometric point to billions of light-years across in mere seconds.
Regardless of the duration involved, I am contrasting the difference between a calculated supposition based on scientific inquiry as opposed to a firm belief in something written millenia ago in a non-scientific religious book.
Bad enough any space station eventually ends up smelling like a men's room in Jersey City after a while.....they really want to add kimchi to the mix?
I encountered kimchi once. Imagine, if you will, the stinkiest, foulest, most gag-inducing fart you have ever smelled. Kimchi is worse.
Re:Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong
on
An Epidemic of Snooping
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Kind of bothered some of them, but instead of learning crypto basics, they yelled at me. I do not understand this behaviour...
Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong. You put them in the position of being proved wrong by a nerd. Surprised they aren't happy?
It's the difference between the few souls in this world who think rationally (like the nerd) and most of humanity which tends to let emotion rule the day (like those students).
I am in the former category. And I do not mind being proven wrong. In fact, I welcome it. I want to understand life, the universe and everything a little better each day, and the clearer and better informed my thinking, the more useful and accurate my knowledge becomes.
Many people, however, seem to have a huge emotional stake in being "right." They cannot possibly begin to admit the thought that they might be wrong -- I dunno, maybe it's a basic self-esteem thing. That's why almost a decade into the 21st Century, we still have people who believe such things as the universe being created in 6 days, or that the moon landings were faked, or that Barry Bonds just worked out a lot.
My experience has been that most discussions of this sort go something like this:
Other guy (we'll call him "Joe") states a misinformed opinion.
I show Joe the error of his argument and point out his factual errors.
Joe pauses, then merely repeats the same line of "reasoning." (The last two steps may loop several times in succession with Joe becoming more and more flustered.)
Joe at some point abandons any pretense of rational argument and, having quickly exhausted his arsenal, starts to use phrases like "you just don't understand" or "that's just the way it is" or the like. (Optional phrases include "But God says it, so I believe it" or "Well, that's what my mother taught me -- are you calling my mother a liar?")
Final phase has Joe (a)attacking my character and the circumstances of my birth, usually accompanied by various words and phrases on the FCC's no-no list.
This is why it does not pay to argue about anything with anyone. When warning signs of the early phases of the above conversation begin to appear, quickly change the subject. When someone prefers to wallow in ignorance, there is little you can do. Pressing the issue will just make you an asshole in their eyes, and in extreme cases may result in the proverbial and venerable knuckle-sandwich being applied to your nose.
I don't know the mental processes involved, but it seems to take more concentration to converse with someone who is "out there" somewhere, that you cannot see, than someone sitting right next to you. Plus add in straining to hear someone's disembodied voice on a little cellphone versus having the full volume and resonance of their voice a couple of feet away -- makes a difference, especially in a noisy environment (i.e., traffic). I think I even recall reading a study where they scanned the brains of people having the two types of conversations, and there were significant differences in the areas of the brain used, and to what extent, etc. This is also why "hands-free" devices only provide slightly more safety -- you do keep both hands on the wheel, but the mental processes remain the same.
Moral is that, short of a life or death emergency, there is almost no phone conversation that needs to be done while driving -- pull over. As a carless pedestrian in a busy city, I have been nearly run down many times in my life, and 9 times out of 10, the offending driver has his/her ear glued to a cellphone.
It's getting to the point where it isn't worth leaving *any* trails on the Inet.
More like getting to the point where I don't want to be on the Net at all. Thinking of living the simple life.....move to a little cabin in Montana....I'd have plenty of time and quiet to start writing my manifesto.....
I suspect it would take all of 6 months to find three instances where an intern has used a chunk of code from someone else's template or a designer uses a bit of a CC image in an advertisement.
Sorry if I took it the wrong way, but you make it seem like the Court having the power and responsibility to keep everyone in line with the Constitution is a bad thing.
No, I'm not saying that the Court having the power and responsibility to keep everyone in line with the Constitution is a bad thing. I'm saying that THIS Court having the power and ability to keep everyone in line in spite of the Constitution is a bad thing.
My guess is, if he wins the nomination, someone will make an assassination attempt just prior to the November election. There's just too many groups out there to whom Obama would be a threat, both philosophically and economically, and not just the neocons either.
Considering that Obama has been compared to JFK, and the groundswell of excitement for his campaign (especially among young folks) akin to that of RFK, and with his being African-American like MLK....well, yes, I worry about the same thing happening. As Mark Twain once said: "History does not repeat itself. But it does rhyme."
Wow....all hail the Second Coming. Messiah Obama. He will magically rescue us from all our ills...
Look, I love the guy, and he is heads above anyone else in this race. But don't think for a second that he's going to represent some wholesale shift in government policies. He'll be corrupted and compromised, at least to some extent, by the realities of D.C. culture and by those who wield the real power. (Hint: it's not in the White House. Think big bureaucracies with three initials. Not to mention nine people in ugly black robes.) Once power is obtained, those who yield it tend to be quite reluctant to let go of it.
Will we be better off under an Obama presidency? Hell yes, no doubt. Will all government corruption and Constitution-gutting cease? When pigs fly. It's always about choosing the lesser of the evils.
But English, man, any semi-coherent motherfucker with a keyboard, pencil, pen, paper, dirt path, or whatever can be understood by any motherfucker unfortunate enough to read the gibberish.
While I agree that public records should be accessible, it really depends on how one defines "public" and "accessible." Are there laws around that demand that such records must be put on the Internet? As long as they are obtainable from the source, via whatever methodology and in whatever format the source makes available, they are both "public" and "accessible." There is a strong case to be made that some information should be accessible, but not easily or anonymously accessible. I don't particularly want any thief, stalker, extortionist, or generally unbalanced yahoo viewing MY tax or property records for no good or legitimate reason. I think it perfectly reasonable that if someone wants to see those, they should have to either (a)physically go to the source, or (b)obtain hard copies via mail with a written request. In both cases, ID should be checked and a record kept. Sure, if someone really wanted to screw me over using that information, they could use a fake ID, mail drop, etc., but the point is that the vast majority of the voyeurs would be put off by the inability to make the request anonymously.
Unfortunately it is all too easy to accomplish identify theft via some very uncomplicated and low-tech methods. People still click on links in emails and type their financial information into fake websites or answer questions over the phone to the nice IRS man who wants to send me a tax rebate.
Far lower tech than that -- much identity theft is still accomplished through dumpster diving, mailbox theft, over-the-shoulder snooping, and many other techniques that have been around since way before the Internet.
I have always appreciated NYCL's opinions and commentary, and it's not hard to see why the RIAA was so keen on discrediting him. After all, he is their worst nightmare: a lawyer who (a)is not on their side, (b)actually understands computer technology and software, and (c)also understands the dubious legal nature of many of the RIAA's actions. Moreover, he can explain (b) and (c) in ways that even the most clueless judge (not to mention the most non-techie/. reader, like me) can understand. He's showing that the emperor has no clothes (or, at the very least, is in a state of minimal dress) and they take umbrage at that. Keep fighting the good fight, sir -- we salute you.
It "dicks over" (great phrase) a seller like me because if someone bids on a high-value item, now I will have no way of knowing if they have stiffed or otherwise screwed other sellers previously. A lot of sellers have personal policies about protectively refusing or canceling bids from bidders with a significant percentage of negative feedback. Now when someone bids on my auction, he/she may have stiffed the last three sellers they deal with, and I'm clueless.
Every time eBay changes its policies, it makes it more and more of a crapshoot to try to sell anything on there. But they are the 800-pound gorilla of the online auction world, which means the hassles are still to some extent mitigated by the much larger audience viewing ones auctions. Whenever crap like this comes down from on high at eBay, you will hear sellers rant and rave about how they are going to take their business elsewhere. Most don't; a few do but quickly return when they try using the smaller auction sites and see their income plummet.
This is just the beginning, folks. It's all right there in the "final rule" published by the DHS. The Real ID is "only" to be used for "access to Federal facilities, boarding Federally-regulated commercial aircraft, entry into nuclear power plants, and such other purposes as established by the Secretary of Homeland Security."
That last phrase leaves the door wide open. It's just like those job descriptions that end with the phrase "and such other duties as may be assigned," so you can never say "that's not my job" when the boss asks you to scrub the toilets or something. They could require the use of Real ID for ANYTHING THEY WANT and always point to that phrase.
More and more, the RIAA war on download piracy makes me think of the government's war on drugs. Not a perfect analogy, but think about it:
One war spends vast sums of money to interdict a tiny percentage of illegal drugs, while overall use continues to rise. The other war spends vast sums of money to sue a tiny percentage of illegal downloaders, while overall downloading continues to rise.
Both wars target users who do not consider what they are doing to be immoral or wrong, and who will likely continue their activities despite any laws passed against them.
Both wars have generalized popular support from Mr. and Mrs. America, who are ignorant of or blind to the tactics involved and the overall futility and low success rate.
Both wars snag innocent people in their dragnets. If you happen to share a house with someone who has drugs, you can be arrested. Likewise, if you happen to own a computer on which someone else downloaded copyrighted material, you can be sued.
Both wars are stubbornly persistent and deny reality. The government refuses to acknowledge that legalizing and regulating recreational drugs would result in less crime, fewer overdoses, and far more money available for treatment and prevention and education. The RIAA refuses to acknowledge that digital technology has made their system of distribution and compensation rapidly obsolete and in need of a quantum change.
I could go on and on, and y'all could probably come up with some of your own parallels. The only real difference is that being caught up in the war on drugs can land you in the slammer for a long time, while illegal downloading will not.
We had "anti-matter," "dark matter," now "phantom matter." Jesus, is there anything substantial and real in physics anymore? As the years go on, physics starts to sound less and less like science and more and more like "Alice in Wonderland." Everything seems to hinge on things we can't see, or can't measure, or can't prove. Unless some of this mumbo jumbo can give me eternal life, make women throw themselves at me, or build a better and more luscious cheeseburger, I'm not interested.
I agree that this is a huge problem, but I don't think pricing domain names out of the range of po' people (like me) and putting more money in the pockets of the registrars is a valid solution. The only theoretical solution I can think of is to limit the number of domains you can register at one time, or better yet within a certain time frame. But even that is flawed. Retailers do this all the time by limiting the amount of a certain sale item you can buy -- if widgets are normally $20 each, and they are put on sale for $10, they don't want one person buying all their stock out at once to resell them somewhere, and piss off the rest of the store's customers in the process, being accused of "bait and switch" when all the stock disappears in the first moments of the sale. But there are ways to ameliorate that limitation: go around to different branches of the same store and buy the limit, go back to the same store several times, use confederates to each buy up to the limit, etc. Likewise, any limitations on domain purchases could be undermined by using multiple dummy corporate names, going to a bunch of different registrars, etc. It makes the process more difficult, and not as successful, but wouldn't dampen the enthusiasm of ardent speculators.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering that no one "knows" how the universe was created, a duration of six days is just about as good as any other. When the "big bang" theory was in vogue, I read lots of time lines where the universe expanded from a geometric point to billions of light-years across in mere seconds.
Regardless of the duration involved, I am contrasting the difference between a calculated supposition based on scientific inquiry as opposed to a firm belief in something written millenia ago in a non-scientific religious book.
Hey -- how did you find out about both my diet and my sexual habits? See -- this is why we need protection of our personal data....
Bad enough any space station eventually ends up smelling like a men's room in Jersey City after a while.....they really want to add kimchi to the mix?
I encountered kimchi once. Imagine, if you will, the stinkiest, foulest, most gag-inducing fart you have ever smelled. Kimchi is worse.
Kind of bothered some of them, but instead of learning crypto basics, they yelled at me. I do not understand this behaviour...
Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong. You put them in the position of being proved wrong by a nerd. Surprised they aren't happy?
It's the difference between the few souls in this world who think rationally (like the nerd) and most of humanity which tends to let emotion rule the day (like those students).
I am in the former category. And I do not mind being proven wrong. In fact, I welcome it. I want to understand life, the universe and everything a little better each day, and the clearer and better informed my thinking, the more useful and accurate my knowledge becomes.
Many people, however, seem to have a huge emotional stake in being "right." They cannot possibly begin to admit the thought that they might be wrong -- I dunno, maybe it's a basic self-esteem thing. That's why almost a decade into the 21st Century, we still have people who believe such things as the universe being created in 6 days, or that the moon landings were faked, or that Barry Bonds just worked out a lot.
My experience has been that most discussions of this sort go something like this:
Other guy (we'll call him "Joe") states a misinformed opinion.
I show Joe the error of his argument and point out his factual errors.
Joe pauses, then merely repeats the same line of "reasoning." (The last two steps may loop several times in succession with Joe becoming more and more flustered.)
Joe at some point abandons any pretense of rational argument and, having quickly exhausted his arsenal, starts to use phrases like "you just don't understand" or "that's just the way it is" or the like. (Optional phrases include "But God says it, so I believe it" or "Well, that's what my mother taught me -- are you calling my mother a liar?")
Final phase has Joe (a)attacking my character and the circumstances of my birth, usually accompanied by various words and phrases on the FCC's no-no list.
This is why it does not pay to argue about anything with anyone. When warning signs of the early phases of the above conversation begin to appear, quickly change the subject. When someone prefers to wallow in ignorance, there is little you can do. Pressing the issue will just make you an asshole in their eyes, and in extreme cases may result in the proverbial and venerable knuckle-sandwich being applied to your nose.
I don't know the mental processes involved, but it seems to take more concentration to converse with someone who is "out there" somewhere, that you cannot see, than someone sitting right next to you. Plus add in straining to hear someone's disembodied voice on a little cellphone versus having the full volume and resonance of their voice a couple of feet away -- makes a difference, especially in a noisy environment (i.e., traffic). I think I even recall reading a study where they scanned the brains of people having the two types of conversations, and there were significant differences in the areas of the brain used, and to what extent, etc. This is also why "hands-free" devices only provide slightly more safety -- you do keep both hands on the wheel, but the mental processes remain the same.
Moral is that, short of a life or death emergency, there is almost no phone conversation that needs to be done while driving -- pull over. As a carless pedestrian in a busy city, I have been nearly run down many times in my life, and 9 times out of 10, the offending driver has his/her ear glued to a cellphone.
It's getting to the point where it isn't worth leaving *any* trails on the Inet.
More like getting to the point where I don't want to be on the Net at all. Thinking of living the simple life.....move to a little cabin in Montana....I'd have plenty of time and quiet to start writing my manifesto.....
I suspect it would take all of 6 months to find three instances where an intern has used a chunk of code from someone else's template or a designer uses a bit of a CC image in an advertisement.
More like six minutes...Sorry if I took it the wrong way, but you make it seem like the Court having the power and responsibility to keep everyone in line with the Constitution is a bad thing.
No, I'm not saying that the Court having the power and responsibility to keep everyone in line with the Constitution is a bad thing. I'm saying that THIS Court having the power and ability to keep everyone in line in spite of the Constitution is a bad thing.
My guess is, if he wins the nomination, someone will make an assassination attempt just prior to the November election. There's just too many groups out there to whom Obama would be a threat, both philosophically and economically, and not just the neocons either.
Considering that Obama has been compared to JFK, and the groundswell of excitement for his campaign (especially among young folks) akin to that of RFK, and with his being African-American like MLK....well, yes, I worry about the same thing happening. As Mark Twain once said: "History does not repeat itself. But it does rhyme."
Just like teens will stop using pot when told of possible jail time for toking. How could this possibly not work?
Wow....all hail the Second Coming. Messiah Obama. He will magically rescue us from all our ills...
Look, I love the guy, and he is heads above anyone else in this race. But don't think for a second that he's going to represent some wholesale shift in government policies. He'll be corrupted and compromised, at least to some extent, by the realities of D.C. culture and by those who wield the real power. (Hint: it's not in the White House. Think big bureaucracies with three initials. Not to mention nine people in ugly black robes.) Once power is obtained, those who yield it tend to be quite reluctant to let go of it.
Will we be better off under an Obama presidency? Hell yes, no doubt. Will all government corruption and Constitution-gutting cease? When pigs fly. It's always about choosing the lesser of the evils.
"It is always easier to obtain forgiveness than permission."
But English, man, any semi-coherent motherfucker with a keyboard, pencil, pen, paper, dirt path, or whatever can be understood by any motherfucker unfortunate enough to read the gibberish.
Hey, you're right! I understood you perfectly!
While I agree that public records should be accessible, it really depends on how one defines "public" and "accessible." Are there laws around that demand that such records must be put on the Internet? As long as they are obtainable from the source, via whatever methodology and in whatever format the source makes available, they are both "public" and "accessible." There is a strong case to be made that some information should be accessible, but not easily or anonymously accessible. I don't particularly want any thief, stalker, extortionist, or generally unbalanced yahoo viewing MY tax or property records for no good or legitimate reason. I think it perfectly reasonable that if someone wants to see those, they should have to either (a)physically go to the source, or (b)obtain hard copies via mail with a written request. In both cases, ID should be checked and a record kept. Sure, if someone really wanted to screw me over using that information, they could use a fake ID, mail drop, etc., but the point is that the vast majority of the voyeurs would be put off by the inability to make the request anonymously.
Unfortunately it is all too easy to accomplish identify theft via some very uncomplicated and low-tech methods. People still click on links in emails and type their financial information into fake websites or answer questions over the phone to the nice IRS man who wants to send me a tax rebate.
Far lower tech than that -- much identity theft is still accomplished through dumpster diving, mailbox theft, over-the-shoulder snooping, and many other techniques that have been around since way before the Internet.
I have always appreciated NYCL's opinions and commentary, and it's not hard to see why the RIAA was so keen on discrediting him. After all, he is their worst nightmare: a lawyer who (a)is not on their side, (b)actually understands computer technology and software, and (c)also understands the dubious legal nature of many of the RIAA's actions. Moreover, he can explain (b) and (c) in ways that even the most clueless judge (not to mention the most non-techie /. reader, like me) can understand. He's showing that the emperor has no clothes (or, at the very least, is in a state of minimal dress) and they take umbrage at that. Keep fighting the good fight, sir -- we salute you.
It "dicks over" (great phrase) a seller like me because if someone bids on a high-value item, now I will have no way of knowing if they have stiffed or otherwise screwed other sellers previously. A lot of sellers have personal policies about protectively refusing or canceling bids from bidders with a significant percentage of negative feedback. Now when someone bids on my auction, he/she may have stiffed the last three sellers they deal with, and I'm clueless.
Every time eBay changes its policies, it makes it more and more of a crapshoot to try to sell anything on there. But they are the 800-pound gorilla of the online auction world, which means the hassles are still to some extent mitigated by the much larger audience viewing ones auctions. Whenever crap like this comes down from on high at eBay, you will hear sellers rant and rave about how they are going to take their business elsewhere. Most don't; a few do but quickly return when they try using the smaller auction sites and see their income plummet.
This is just the beginning, folks. It's all right there in the "final rule" published by the DHS. The Real ID is "only" to be used for "access to Federal facilities, boarding Federally-regulated commercial aircraft, entry into nuclear power plants, and such other purposes as established by the Secretary of Homeland Security."
That last phrase leaves the door wide open. It's just like those job descriptions that end with the phrase "and such other duties as may be assigned," so you can never say "that's not my job" when the boss asks you to scrub the toilets or something. They could require the use of Real ID for ANYTHING THEY WANT and always point to that phrase.
More and more, the RIAA war on download piracy makes me think of the government's war on drugs. Not a perfect analogy, but think about it:
One war spends vast sums of money to interdict a tiny percentage of illegal drugs, while overall use continues to rise. The other war spends vast sums of money to sue a tiny percentage of illegal downloaders, while overall downloading continues to rise.
Both wars target users who do not consider what they are doing to be immoral or wrong, and who will likely continue their activities despite any laws passed against them.
Both wars have generalized popular support from Mr. and Mrs. America, who are ignorant of or blind to the tactics involved and the overall futility and low success rate.
Both wars snag innocent people in their dragnets. If you happen to share a house with someone who has drugs, you can be arrested. Likewise, if you happen to own a computer on which someone else downloaded copyrighted material, you can be sued.
Both wars are stubbornly persistent and deny reality. The government refuses to acknowledge that legalizing and regulating recreational drugs would result in less crime, fewer overdoses, and far more money available for treatment and prevention and education. The RIAA refuses to acknowledge that digital technology has made their system of distribution and compensation rapidly obsolete and in need of a quantum change.
I could go on and on, and y'all could probably come up with some of your own parallels. The only real difference is that being caught up in the war on drugs can land you in the slammer for a long time, while illegal downloading will not.
Yet.
We had "anti-matter," "dark matter," now "phantom matter." Jesus, is there anything substantial and real in physics anymore? As the years go on, physics starts to sound less and less like science and more and more like "Alice in Wonderland." Everything seems to hinge on things we can't see, or can't measure, or can't prove. Unless some of this mumbo jumbo can give me eternal life, make women throw themselves at me, or build a better and more luscious cheeseburger, I'm not interested.
The real WTF is, people in the USA watch football in churches? How the fuck is that not somehow blasphemous?
In some parts of the U.S., football is the dominant religion.
...on a similar theme (maleless society after a plague -- women reproduce via cloning).
"Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"
And the whole scene needs to end with the Spanish Inquisition showing up.....
I agree that this is a huge problem, but I don't think pricing domain names out of the range of po' people (like me) and putting more money in the pockets of the registrars is a valid solution. The only theoretical solution I can think of is to limit the number of domains you can register at one time, or better yet within a certain time frame. But even that is flawed. Retailers do this all the time by limiting the amount of a certain sale item you can buy -- if widgets are normally $20 each, and they are put on sale for $10, they don't want one person buying all their stock out at once to resell them somewhere, and piss off the rest of the store's customers in the process, being accused of "bait and switch" when all the stock disappears in the first moments of the sale. But there are ways to ameliorate that limitation: go around to different branches of the same store and buy the limit, go back to the same store several times, use confederates to each buy up to the limit, etc. Likewise, any limitations on domain purchases could be undermined by using multiple dummy corporate names, going to a bunch of different registrars, etc. It makes the process more difficult, and not as successful, but wouldn't dampen the enthusiasm of ardent speculators.
I thought that ship had already sailed...